


And, to What End?

by largefella



Category: House of Cards (US TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-16 09:52:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3483830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/largefella/pseuds/largefella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom always had a nasty habit of backing himself into corners.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And, to What End?

“We could fuck, if you'd like.”

He's far, too far across the room to be saying what he's saying. Tom has crushed himself into the furthest corner of his chair. He hasn't properly slept in days—probably since Frank rejected the first chapter of his manuscript.

He blinks often but the grit is persistent, as is the terrifying smile that Frank wears so comfortably. But Tom isn't worried about it yet. It's just a suggestion. And Frank has turned down his offer once before.

“Do you know who else does what you're doing right now?”

Tom's mind sluggishly moves to an answer. Frank yanks it out from under him with obvious pleasure.

“A _child_. When he doesn't get what he wants a child throws a temper tantrum and kicks his legs and screams until his face is as red as a tomato. He knows it won't change anything but he still does it anyway. A child doesn't know any better. A child doesn't know yet how to grit his teeth and to bear it, to accept something he finds unacceptable and move on from it. You do understand what I'm getting at? Don't you, Tom?”

Frank's condescending tone incenses Tom. He pulls his bottom lip inward with his teeth and then lets it go.

Restrained, “That wasn't a 'no'.”

Frank's smile drops and Tom fights the near over-whelming urge to run to the locked door.

“Is that really what you want?”

The atmosphere changes and the room seems to grow darker. Frank rises from his desk and quietly stalks over to Tom. He stands before Tom and looks down his nose at him with such contempt that Tom regrets how far he's allowed himself to slip.

Frank is a coiling serpent with fruit in his grasp. Inviting yet buffering. Pulling and collapsing reason into a hot, mindless greed. There is something here in this room with him, right now, a story of the ages that deserved telling.

A story that only _he_ could tell.

The persistent fervor returns, just under his still-too-tight loosened shirt collar.

It is different with Frank than it had been with other men. He wasn't just any other man and Claire wasn't just any other wife. Tom had come to realize this too late, when his curiosity festered and grew to gangrenous obsession. He was hooked, irrevocably hooked. And together, both Claire and Frank had commandeered his dreams and every waking moment with flashes of something cold and dark and abyssal. 

He is, in no uncertain terms, as frightened as his is aroused. And it is like Frank can smell it on him.

“You are _nothing_ to me. You are a pathetic child whose ego outweighs his common sense. And I wouldn't dirty my heel with you let alone _fuck_ you.”

Frank's fingers find Tom's jaw, roughly turns his head to the side. Tom's fingers curl over the rounded ends of the chair's arms. Without prompting, his tongue comes out to lick the closest finger to his mouth. He turns his head slightly to get the entire length of it. He doesn't break Frank's gaze and Frank doesn't react to the action with more than a curl of his lip.

“Do you want me to call you Daddy? I can do that, if you're into that sort of thing.”

This registers, slowly but surely. First doubt, then intense concentration. Franks slips his index finger fully into Tom's mouth and Tom closes his eyes as he sucks it, tongue stroking it reverently. When he finally opens his eyes Frank's smile is back but it is ice cold. 

“I want you to touch yourself,” is all Frank says. 

When Frank's fingers leave his chin, Tom smiles and he at first remains very still.

How many times has he heard that? Back then there had always been old men, old enough to be his grandfather, who would simply watch as he played with himself. Their eyes would shine with need but they had been unable to do much else but take in the sight and apologize. And they would touch only his face, fixated on his blank expression, and tell him he was— _"Beautiful. So beautiful. You're such a beautiful boy."_

But Frank was not one of these simpering, dying patriarchs. Tom somehow knew he was more than capable of grabbing him by the throat and brutalizing him, destroying him completely. He gets the feeling because of the way Frank looks at him like he was taking him apart, piece by piece, with his eyes. What are you worth to me? Frank seemed to ask. What use will I have out of you?

So, abruptly, Tom feels an eagerness to please. He slowly unbuckles his belt and begins jacking off in front of the President of the United States.

“Open your legs,” Frank commands, displeased. “Wider.”

Tom slouches further into his chair and continues. The fabric of his briefs rub across the tip of his cock, feather-light, and pleasure flutters down the insides of his thighs. He keeps the other hand on the chair's arm, clenching.

Of course, he's aware that this needs to be a performance. He is auditioning.

He lets his head fall back, after a while, and exposes his neck to Frank although doing so makes him feel uneasy.

“You said something to Claire didn't you? Well, whatever it was, it's driven a wedge between us.”

Frank's voice comes from his side, just out of his line of sight. Tom lifts his hips. His cock twitches and he applies more pressure, pumping nice and easy and slow. With his dry hands, the pleasure is tempered with some discomfort. He's loathe to admit that he is close to blowing his load already.

“Whatever Claire decided to do, she did so of her own accord,” Tom flicks a tongue over his bottom lip as he says this and then groans.

Frank's chuckle is mirthless. His mouth is suddenly beside Tom's ear and the sensation makes Tom jump.

“She warned me about you, you know; said you were getting too close. Tell me Tom, what do you think you saw?”

Frank's voice goes straight to his cock and Tom desperately rolls his hips, fighting to keep still.

“Something...great,” Tom whispers and his breath hitches as the tight heaviness begins to grow in his balls.

“Something _worth_ writing about.”

Frank suddenly swings around the chair and kneels before Tom. Tom's hand is yanked out of his pants. Frank pulls out Tom's cock and wraps his lips around it in one fluid motion and swallows, once.

Tom arches up and shivers with a soft, stuttering gasp. His fingers helplessly find the chair's cushions, knuckles white, and he shudders once, twice, before he collapses back into the chair. 

A hand pats his face and he looks up to find Frank looming over him again.

Frank tilts Tom's chin up and dribbles the cum from his mouth on to Tom's face. Tom feels it drip on his forehead, slide down his nose and down his beard and chin and neck and somehow remembers to keep his eyes locked with Frank's. What he finds there is dark and fathomless. Frank, physically nonetheless, seems pleased judging by how flushed his cheeks have become. Tom commends himself on a job well done, after being out of the game for so long, despite how disgusted with himself he is.

“Same pay. I'll call you when I need you. And you _will_ write the book I asked for. Are we clear?”

“Crystal,” Tom replies. 

* * *

There are no markings on the ceiling.

Tom lethargically scans the stretch of white for something, anything, as he steadies his breath.

It has been a while since he has been properly fucked. His insides feel raw and his hips are sore. He lies still only because moving causes him discomfort.

He tries to balance the scale. Frank has told him about a girl named Zoe Barnes. How ambitious she was. How good her pussy tasted. _"Really too bad what happened to her", Frank grunted as he eased himself into the rigid, panting body beneath him._

"You believe in America Works, don't you Tom?" The statement is punctuated by the sound of a zipper. He looks at Frank, his head hanging off of the edge of the bed, and Frank is upside-down, deftly fixing his tie in the mirror. There isn't much to be gleaned from the neutral tone.

"It works pretty well, last I saw. Why? Is the cap forty-thousand?"

Frank takes a moment to adjust his cuffs. He turns around and tilts his head, taking in Tom's naked form on the bed. Tom slides his fingers across his chest.

"What was it that you had said? 'It all connects'. My marriage, America Works...thirty years of my life devoted to arriving where I currently am."

Tom nods, though it is more of a twitch of his head, and smiles. "And your failed foreign policy, and your divorce."

"I honestly don't know what happened to Claire," Frank says this more to himself than Tom. The look on his face, reflected in the mirror, is one of genuine puzzlement. "She was one of my best soldiers."

"You know, you always talk about your achievements as though you had to fight tooth and nail to get to them. Truth be told, up until America Works, success seemed to come naturally to you," Tom observed.

"Dear Tom. Are you suggesting that I somehow got to where I am through unsavory means?"

The drawl implied playfulness but was full of malice. Tom felt his skin prickle. He has prodded Frank the wrong way. Everyone does, he wants to reply but, curiously, his tongue holds fast.

Frank approaches him and sits on the bed, dipping Tom towards him.

"Oh but Claire was right about you. I've let you get too close. But now she's gone and it's like I'm missing half of myself."

Frank's hand gently cups Tom's cheek. Tom swallows hard. Frank's eyes bore into him. "Can you heal that, Tom? Can you replace even just a fragment of that?"

Tom feels a confusing mix of longing and fear as Frank then strokes him with his knuckles, the cold metal of his ring shooting a chill through the meat of Tom's jaw.

He makes a sound, something pathetic, that was perhaps supposed to come out as a "yes".

"Shh. It's alright Tom, it's alright. Remember what I told you?" Frank whispers, now grasping Tom's face with both hands. He leans close.

Tom squeezes his eyes shut.

_"I'm real."_

* * *

"You look tired."

The observation lacked sympathy or indeed any emotion at all. Tom feels more tired than he has ever been his entire life. He feels dwarfed by Claire, his skin drawn tight over his bones and vulnerable to her piercing gaze.

She's dressed in black, legs crossed, hands clasped tightly on her lap. She hasn't bothered to make her smile look natural.

The divorce being made official—and done in a most deceptively amicable way—has delivered a blow to Frank's approval ratings. A President with no First Lady was harder to sell than a President without personality-less offspring. But he was managing, somehow. Even with Dunbar and Sharp and the Republicans and his own Party members nipping at his heels. And Tom has added this to the incomplete manuscript; Chapter Forty: _A wife! My Kingdom for a wife!_

He had two books he was working on now; one about America Works and the other about Frank. One he walked around with in his messenger bag and one that he kept under his pillow. 

"Why are you lying to him?" Claire questions, startling Tom.

"Who? Frank? What makes you think that I'm lying to him?"

"I know what you're doing. You want him to think you're his friend. That he can trust you. But you're never giving up on that book, are you?"

Tom had been sure that Claire had called him to her secluded studio for a less honorable discussion. Divorces tended to make the unwilling pliant, and make formerly padlocked stories follow like water from the stone. But now he wondered if the Underwoods' divorce wasn't just another one of their unfathomable games.

"I pity you, Tom. I really do. He will use you, he will tire of you, and then he will throw you away," she says this matter-of-fact. Tom's ego is stung and he suddenly wants to march over and slap the cunt but he feels pinned to his chair by her. Not once has she allowed him to leave her line of sight since he stepped through the door. Tom can't imagine why.

"Is that why you left him?" Tom ventures, voice tight. Claire could have been sculpted from marble, so still in her chair and hardly blinking. "Did you stop being useful to him?"

He means it in a less ambiguous way than it sounds. Seeking to make her as uncomfortable as she has made him by attacking her age, her femininity. But she does not react, at least physically, which disappoints him.

"I thought I was his equal. That was my mistake. No one is his equal in his eyes. Not me," she trails off, lifts her chin, "and certainly not you."

"So all this time, after all this." Tom motions vaguely. "He lied to you?" 

Claire's smile resembles Frank's. Abruptly, Tom pictures them fucking, her hair drawn taught against her scalp, that tight black dress bunched up around her midriff. His legs open a little and he grips the chair's arms tighter.

"It's like looking into a mirror, when I look at you. I can see that he has his hooks in you already. I'll let you in on a little secret. I've known Francis for nearly half of my life. Do you think you know him? Do you think he considers you his friend? Francis has no friends. He only has pieces on a board...pieces that know their place and know when to act and how to act. And when they've outgrown their usefulness, he expects them to crawl away to die in seclusion so that he does not have to see. He demands blood in exchange for wine, and he will expect you to thank him for tearing yourself apart for him. That is the kind of man Francis is."

The way she speaks incites a shiver up Tom's spine. She has seen it happen.

"Tell me Tom, are you willing to do that?"

Hearing no reply, she lifts her cup of chamomile tea to her lips from the coffee table and then sets it back down on its blue rimmed saucer.

"It's grown cold. Shall I make us a fresh pot?"

"No, no. It's alright. I should go—there's an event," Tom mumbles hurriedly, eager to leave as fast as is humanly possible.

Claire clasps his hand loosely, elegantly, after they both rise and meet.

"Say 'hello' to Edward for me, would you?"

* * *

"Something else, Meechum?"

Tom looks up from the doodles in his notebook to, unsurprisingly, find Meechum glaring at him.

"Sir, may I speak freely?" Meechum asks, eyes now on Frank. He makes a great show of being content to, for now, ignore Tom entirely.

Tom settles back into his chair and closes his notebook. This is going to be good.

Frank pauses for a moment, pen in mid scrawl, and lifts his eyes. He looks over his reading glasses at Meechum, then Tom, then back again to Meechum. 

"Alright. Close the door." 

Meechum does so, every step full of visible tenseness, and Tom marvels at how one man could be full of such quiet rage.

Standing before Frank again, Meechum takes a moment to shoot Tom a disparaging look and then clasps his hands behind his back.

"I don't think Thomas Yates is to be trusted and I don't feel it is in your best interest to be alone with him."

The statement hangs in the air uncomfortably before Meechum continues.

"Specifically, I don't feel it's safe leaving him alone with you in your bedroom. The door makes it hard to hear what's happening inside. It's simply a security concern. Sir, I'd prefer to keep the doors open if not have me or someone else in the room at the same time during your meetings."

"Now look Meechum, that's thin. If our little ol' Tom here had wanted to hurt me don't you think he's had ample opportunity to do so?"

"He's right you know," Tom manages to weasel in. "But I won't lie. I've often thought about how I could pull it off."

"You're not going to publish that shitty book you were writing," Meechum snaps unhappily. "So why are you _here_?"

"Go on Tom." Frank removes his reading glasses, smiles coyly, and mentions to Tom with them. "Tell him."

Tom hesitates, unsure what exactly Frank meant by 'telling him'. Meechum directs his attention back at Frank, his expression affronted.

"Well, ha, I guess for starters, I _am_ still writing the book and it will be published. The focus has just been changed—"

"As if you even have the faintest idea of what kind of man he is," Meechum interrupts with a hiss, seeming to forget himself.

"Oh, and you do?" Tom cuts back, at last irritated. "You're just the fucking bodyguard, aren't you? What more could you possibly know?"

"More than you'll ever learn for however long this nonsense takes," Meechum retorts, rounding on Tom and forcing Tom to take to his feet. "I've been looking after Mr. and Mrs. Underwood long enough to know all I need to know about them, which is that is that I couldn't have picked a more noble task than to protect the two of them with my life. I'd die for either of them in a heartbeat. And if you can't understand why I would then you might as well pack your shit right now."

Before Tom can respond with something snide about Meechum's infantile choice of words, Frank loudly claps his hands.

"Now, that's enough, now. Meechum, you've made your point."

Tom notices that Frank is reasonably pleased by Meechum's passionate divergence from his usual cold stoicism. His look is one of pride, like a father looking favorably on his offspring—or perhaps as a trainer would on his prized racehorse.

"You could learn a thing or two from Meechum, Tom," Frank says and Tom uneasily meets his eyes. "Loyalty. It makes or breaks the man, you see. It's the one thing I value above all else. But you know that utterly, completely, don't you... _Edward_."

The second Tom hears Frank purr Meechum's first name, something in him tells him to leave the room. But he remains rooted to the spot. Meechum's breath is noticeably close and the smell of his aftershave fills Tom's nose.

"Come here Edward," Frank whispers and Meechum's response is immediate. He brushes past Tom as though in a trance and circles round the desk until he is beside Frank.

Pulling him down by his tie, Frank kisses Meechum deeply, and holds him down until he is finished with him. Tom feels a twinge in his gut.

When Frank finally releases the panting Meechum, he shoots a look over at Tom and his smile is cruel. Of course. Of course.

"You miss Claire, don't you Edward?" Frank inquires, wrapping Meechum's tie around his fist.

Meechum is still for a moment, then he nods quietly. He has to bend down slightly to keep from being strangled and his neck and cheeks are flushed with blood.

"Me too," Frank replies and gives Meechum a little shake, never once breaking Tom's gaze. "You know what would cheer me up?"

Frank leans up to whisper something inaudible into Meechum's ear whose expression, mid-way, grows stoic again. The tie slips from Franks fingers and Meechum is suddenly standing in front of Tom again. And Tom realizes that he must see through whatever comes next. Here was his chance to slip further into Frank's inner circle, to get close enough so that he no longer needed to skim the surface of what was really going on here. His heart beats fast and he scans Meechum's face, who is doing the same.

It is Meechum who knows what to do first.

Meechum's kiss is aggressive. He's strong—his hands are heavy on Tom's shoulders. He pulls on Tom's lip and bites hard and Tom jerks away at the sudden pain, hand flying up to his bloodied lip in shock.

"What the fuck!" Tom hisses and Meechum's expression is one of disgust. He turns to Frank, who is observing from his desk, looking for approval.

"Now, now. Not so rough with him, Meechum."

Frank then indicates for Meechum continue and Meechum's hands are suddenly at Tom's shirt, ripping, scattering buttons, and forcibly rolling the item down Tom's shoulders.

Meechum draws close, hands now on Tom's belt buckle, mouth hot against his.

"Get on the bed," Meechum only says.

The whole time Meechum stretches him, Frank is watching. Tom can feel the eyes on him and he tries to make like he's enjoying it but it's just too strange having Meechum's fingers work inside him when just minutes ago they were ready to trade blows. He ventures that Meechum probably feels the same but the other man is apparently better at hiding it. The dirtiest words are leaving Meechum's lips, throaty and raw, and every so often he tongues Tom's ear very, very thoroughly. Tom's embarrassed to say that this all makes him sufficiently aroused enough to buck back against Meechum's fingers.

And when he finally does, Meechum fucks him as though he's trying to break him. Tom stifles his groans of pain by setting his teeth on his fist.

"Roll him over," Frank commands from behind and Meechum manhandles Tom to his hands and knees and yanks his head up by his hair.

"You look him in the eye. Show some fucking respect," Meechum whispers hoarsely and runs his tongue down the side of Tom's neck, making his breath hitch.

_"Are you willing to do that?"_ Claire reminds him. 

I don't know. I don't know. I don't think I know what I'm doing anymore.

Frank is now on the bed with them, back resting against the headboard, watching—only watching.

The only pleasure Tom gets is from his cock rubbing up against the sheets and the knowledge that Frank's eyes are on him. He is close enough to touch Frank and he does, fingers finding the fabric of his dress shirt. He holds on to him like a child and chokes.

"What is it Tom? Have you something to tell me?" Frank inquires smoothly and Tom tries to think of something to say but he can't, not when he can feel Meechum's heartbeat against his back and he feels himself tipping over a somewhat unsatisfying edge.

He comes messily, unconsciously clenching Meechum's cock in his ass, who stops thrusting to slump over Tom with a groan.

"Good boy, Edward," Frank's guttural praise, though not directed to him, makes Tom smile.

He arches when Meechum slips out of him and crawls over his heaving body—hard cock brushing Tom's lower back—to kiss Frank hungrily.

He lifts his eyes to the sight and briefly wonders how long Meechum has shared the Underwood's bed and how they managed to catch him in their web. Meechum and Frank's long kiss is far more intimate than anything he's shared with Frank and, rather than feel jealous, Tom admires Frank's ability to bend another man to his will in this way. 

Meechum's moan is more like a whine when Frank draws away. 

"Now, finish up and come inside Tom, would you?"

Meechum looks devastated by this prospect but he nevertheless obeys. Tom feels himself drawn up, back against Frank's chest and now facing Meechum, legs in the air. Meechum pushes into him again, holding his ankles, and Tom's hands find the sheets again. And Frank's hand finds Tom's throat.

The hand tightens to the point that Tom is more focused on it than the cock in him. He doesn't trust Frank in this way; keeping from struggling takes tremendous effort.

"Do you still want this Tom?" Frank's whisper is deadly, and it makes the hairs on the back of Tom's neck rise. "Is it still worth it?"

He isn't sure he has an answer, let alone wants to answer. If this was a test, then he has backed himself too far in to try to escape now.

His vision blurs, ceiling above him softening, when Meechum finally comes inside him in several short spurts.

Tom's head has fallen back onto Frank's shoulder and he closes his eyes in well-fucked resignation. He can feel the heat and cock pulsate inside him and Frank's mouth is wet on his cheek, crooning and encouraging.

Meechum finally draws back to fall on his heels, dropping Tom's legs, and Frank's hand leaves Tom's neck to rest on his shoulder. Tom opens his eyes and his chin dips forward and feels as though he wants to recoil but he hasn't the energy to. And there is a collective drawing of the air, and the synchronized expulsion of the act completed, and they are left to dwell in it until Frank says: "What good boys you both are."

It isn't his first threesome but something about what has just happened makes Tom want to leave and barricade himself in his apartment to sleep it off for a couple of days.

Meechum crawls up beside Frank and lays his head on Frank's chest like a dog. Tom feels him curl up beside him, warm and solid.

The warmth is far too easy to settle into and Tom feels like he's suffocating at the same time. And he can see now how Claire had stayed as long as she had and the reason why she had and how goddamn _fucked_ he was like she said he was.

"I told you. I'm addicted," Tom finally says hoarsely, conviction faltering even as he speaks. "I'm not going anywhere."

Tom feels Frank's fingers in his hair, mussing up the dampened locks, and his eyes drift shut again. Meechum's breath is steady on his neck which will probably be livid with finger shaped bruises by the morning.

"Well, in that case, I think this little arrangement is going to work out nicely," Frank responds as he tenderly traces Tom's jaw.

And it is only in that moment that he realizes, in his position between Frank's legs, that he can't feel any sign of arousal. Frank has derived some other pleasure from the earlier display, something that satisfied that dark and cold and abyssal-something that Tom had only managed glimpses of so far.

He was so close to his answer now.

He just hoped it wouldn't kill him first.


End file.
